Moses Yusuf, the Chief Nutrition Officer for Plateau State, said on Saturday that 66 per cent of children in the state were malnourished.
Yusuf made the disclosure at the United Nation’s Children Fund mid-year review meeting in Jos.
He explained that the figure was arrived at following the Standardised Monitoring of Relief and Transition survey conducted by the Federal Government in 2015.
Yusuf described as very “alarming” the level of malnutrition among children, adding that five out of 10 children in the state remain malnourished.
He said: “According to the SMART report of 2015, over 66 per cent of children in Plateau are totally malnourished.
“The reports shows that 43.7 suffer from stunting, 18.1 per cent are underweight, while 4.6 per cent are wasting.
“When you compare the 2014 with 2015 SMART survey, you will realise that the situation in Plateau is getting worse.
“So, the need for government and other relevant agencies to put all hands on deck so as to arrest this ugly trend before it gets out hand, becomes necessary.”
Yusuf further explained that with the high level of stunting in the state, children were prone to kidney, skin, eye and other endemic diseases, which might be very expensive to treat.
He said: “Stunting is a very serious issue now in Nigeria and it is irreversible after 1000 days, meaning that it may be expensive treating it in the future.
“So, if we don’t treat preventable diseases now, it may be a serious issue handling it in the near future.”
Yusuf challenged mothers and parents in general to take the nutrition of their wards with utmost seriousness.
Comments
Post a Comment